Replacement: Roles
by shadowblade-tara
Summary: Dragon of Despair's Replacement verse: It's Prime's role to be the leader. Unfortunately, Scorponok knows his other roles as well.


Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, or the Replacement universe. Sole credit of that goes to Hasbro and Dragon of Despair, respectively. I hope this is everything you thought it would be, and thanks for letting me write this! (waves)

An: All right, this is a rather silly one-shot that spawned from two things – the random pairing generator and the wacky thought of just _where_ did Sunstreaker and Sideswipe pick up their pranks? They had to learn it from someone, right? Read and Review, please!

Prompt: Optimus Prime / Scorponok / like an open book

**Replacement: Roles**

Optimus Prime made for an imposing figure when he stood at full height, and Will Lennox rather suspected that the Autobot leader knew this. He made for an even more intimidating figure when he was flanked by Ironhide and Ratchet, like he was now. Having Scorponok by his feet didn't help matters, either. Will knew of the meeting Prowl had requested. Something about a pranking war that had gotten out of hand. Optimus had ordered a stop to it, and now Will was about to see what happened when his orders were ignored.

A few seconds later, Prowl appeared and spoke quietly with Optimus. To Will's surprise, Scorponok was behaving himself. Usually the bug was doing everything possible to get out of these meetings, especially when Cliffjumper was involved. Those two didn't take well to begin with, and they still didn't like each other. And not only was Cliffjumper involved, but so was Sunstreaker and Sideswipe.

Optimus made a slight hand motion, and Prowl walked away for a few seconds. He returned with two rather amused Twins, as Sunstreaker and Sideswipe were referred to, and a _very_ pissed-off Cliffjumper. Who, somehow, had been painted.

Bright, florescent pink. With glitter. And rhinestones. It took all of Will's mental power not to start laughing at the sight. Better to wait until the pissed-off mech was gone before he did that. He didn't think even Prime's presence would keep Cliffjumper from attacking him if he started laughing. Optimus looked the mech over, faint amusement visible in his optics. He glanced at Prowl.

"Is that it?"

"No." Prowl sounded aggravated. "There's also glitter in his intake systems, but only enough to be annoying. He's not in any permanent danger."

Optimus nodded. Will thought about that for a second, then figured out it was the equivalent of loading glitter into a vehicle's AC vents. From what he'd heard, it was a pain to clean but not anything that would damage the car, and probably more annoying because of that, too. Judging from the vicious glare on Cliffjumper's face, Will was starting to pity whichever mech did this. Cliffjumper was already making plans to get him back, whoever he was.

"Clean him up as best you can, Ratchet." Optimus requested.

"What about the glitter in his intake systems?" Ratchet asked. "That's not going to come out easy."

Prime's stoic expression cracked. He smirked. "Leave it. It will come out on its own." he said calmly. Cliffjumper's optics went wide, and for a moment Will thought Prowl was going to lock up. Optimus turned his focus to the minibot in question. "Cliffjumper, next time I tell you a prank war has gone too far, you will listen to me, correct?"

Cliffjumper took a slight step back. "Yes sir." With that he turned and followed Ratchet back to the building that had been set up as the medic's hospital, of sorts. Prowl simply stared at Optimus, and Will finally let the laughter he'd been holding back burst forth.

"You did that?" he demanded, a broad grin spreading across his face. Optimus simply smiled at him.

Suddenly Scorponok exploded in a fit of static-laughter. Ironhide glared at the bug. "Yeah, laugh it up." he snarled, but there was no real malice in his tone. "I still say it was a fair guess."

"Fair, yes, but obviously wrong." Sunstreaker said with a grin.

"What guess?" Will asked.

"Ironhide and Scorponok had a bet." Sideswipe explained. "Ironhide thought that was Bumblebee's doing. He picked up a few things from Jazz, and let's just say Jazz was downright evil in a prank war. Glitter in the intake valves take weeks to fully dissipate. The bug, on the other hand, thought it was Optimus." Sideswipe grinned. "Looks like he was right."

Optimus looked down at Scorponok, shock written across his face. "How did you know that, Scorponok?"

Scorponok laughed his static-laugh again. _Master, you are like an open book to me._

Optimus took a second to look up the reference. When he did, he let out a sound like a sigh, but he was smiling. "Just what I need – a pranking bug that can read my processor." To the still-shocked Will, he added, "I was not always a leader, Captain Lennox. Who do you think Jazz learned that from?"

Scorponok just had to have the last word. _Are you going to tell him the reason Prowl is about to shut down is that he never thought you'd actually use a prank he taught you?_

Prime's barely detectable grin was answer enough. Not a chance.

/----/

An: Okay, so it's nowhere near as sophisticated as the original Replacement universe. Different writing styles are to blame. That and I have the feeling Dragon of Despair has been at this longer than I have. So hopefully I haven't butchered things too much. Let me know what you think - I can always use constructive criticism.


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